War of the Sicilian Vespers

The island of Sicily had been part of a Kingdom of Sicily, which also encompassed the southern Italian peninsula, since the early 12th century, when Roger II of Sicily defeated an alliance of Italian mainland barons and was elected king by the pope. Sicily was the heartland of the Hohenstaufen empire of Frederick II of Sicily, and became a much sought after possession for French, Italian and papal interests.[1][2] Control over Sicily was of particular interest to the pope, as the island was vital to the defense of the Papal States and the pope had traditionally been the deciding factor in crowning the next king of Sicily.[1] When Frederick died the kingdom was passed to Manfred I of Sicily, his illegitimate son, who quarreled with the pope over his legitimacy as king.[1]

In 1266 the kingdom was invaded and conquered by Charles I of Anjou, a powerful member of the French royal House of Capet. King Manfred of Sicily was ousted and killed, and Charles' victory established him as ruler of Sicily and most of Southern Italy. His rule over the Sicily soon took on an oppressive character, with heavy taxes being levied on the populace to fund Charles' military campaigns. Charles had a longstanding ambition to act on the 1267 Treaty of Viterbo, which nominally gave the king of Sicily the right to conquer large parts of the Byzantine Empire, and he had recently seized control of Corfu and Albania.[3]

Outside Sicily, other regional powers reacted to the conquest. The papacy and Republic of Genoa feared growing French power in the western Mediterranean, and so backed support away from Charles. King James I of Aragon was outraged by the conquest, as he had strong diplomatic ties with Manfred, and Aragon and Sicily had traditionally had friendly relations.[4] He retaliated to the French conquest by crowning the overthrown Manfred's daughter, Constance, Queen of Sicily and marrying her to his son, Peter of Aragon.[1][2]

Tensions between the French and the Sicilian populace continued to strain, and on Easter Monday (30 March) 1282, at the Church of the Holy Spirit just outside Palermo, at evening prayer (vespers), a Frenchman harassed a Sicilian woman. Accounts differ as to what the harassment entailed, who the woman was, and who the Frenchman was, but a riot quickly ensued.[5] This event led to the massacre of four thousand Frenchmen over the course of the next six weeks. Rebels took control over most major cities; only Messina held out for Charles. But through the diplomatic errors of the vicar, Herbert of Orléans, Messina joined the revolt on April 28 under the command of Captain of the People Alaimo da Lentini. Herbert retreated to the castle of Mategriffon and the crusader fleet stationed in the harbor was burned, greatly hampering Charles' ambitions in the Mediterranean.[1]

Taking advantage of the uprising, physician John of Procida acted to foment further dissent against the French and gather foreign support for the rebels. A loyal supporter of the late Manfred of Sicily, John had fled to Aragon after Charles' conquest of Sicily—with the Vespers rebellion underway, he now acted on behalf of Peter of Aragon, who had claimed Sicily for his wife, Queen Constance.[2] John travelled to Sicily to stir up discontent in favor of Peter, and thence to Constantinople to procure the support of Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus, an enemy of Charles. Michael refused to aid the Aragonese king without papal approval and so John voyaged to Rome and there gained the consent of Pope Nicholas III, who was threatened by Charles' conquest of the Mezzogiorno, and so did not openly oppose an Aragonese intervention. However, Nicholas III died soon after and was replaced by Simon de Brie, a Frenchman and an ally of Charles, who supported Charles' weakening rule over Sicily.[1]

While Aragon maneuvered, Charles struck back at the rebels, raising an army in Calabria and laying siege to Messina.[1] The various factions that made up the Sicilian rebels were initially divided politically; some cities supported independence, others supported Peter of Aragon, while others requested papal protection. The papacy, however, rejected diplomatic overtures and threatened excommunication for rebels that did not surrender to Charles of Anjou, thus inadvertently driving many Sicilians into the pro-Argon factions.[6][7]

Soon after the Vespers itself, the rebel-aligned Sicilians turned to Peter of Aragon to deliver them from French dominion. Peter's claim to the Sicilian throne through his wife, along with heavy pressure from wealthy Aragonese merchant communities, made an Aragonese invasion of Sicily a potentially profitable enterprise for Peter.[1] In addition, depriving Charles of the Sicilian throne would weaken the Capetian dynasty and France, which Aragon struggled against in northern Spain.[1][4] After ten weeks of preparation and, using the prospect of a crusade as cover, Peter's fleet of 140 ships sailed for Collo in North Africa.[1]

The Aragonese fleet landed in Collo and soon received envoys from the Sicilian rebels. Accepting the offer of the Sicilian throne, Peter and his fleet then sailed for Trapani, landing unopposed before marching to Palermo to be crowned.[1] In early October, Aragonese troops forced Charles to lift his siege of Messina and the remaining French forces abandoned the island.[1] Aragonese troops led by prince Jaime of Aragon landed on the mainland, marching toward Reggio without resistance, but no large uprising against Charles took place in wider Calabria.[1] Charles' forces still controlled significant territories on mainland Italy, and newly elected (and decidedly pro-French) Pope Martin IV excommunicated the Sicilian rebels, the Byzantine emperor and the Ghibellines of northern Italy in November.[1] Most significantly of all, the pope excommunicated Peter of Aragon and his ruling House of Barcelona, depriving them of the Aragonese crown and giving the crown of Aragon to Charles of Valois, son of King Philip III of France and great nephew of Charles of Anjou.[1]

Peter pressed his advantage and by February 1283 he had taken most of the Calabrian coastline. On the defensive, Charles sent letters to Peter demanding they resolve the conflict by personal combat. Peter accepted and Charles returned to France to arrange the duel. Both kings chose six knights to settle matters of places and dates. A duel between monarchs was scheduled for 1 June 1283 at English-controlled Bordeaux – one hundred knights would accompany each side, and Edward I of England would adjudge the contest. However, the English king, heeding the pope, refused to take part.[8] Peter left Sicily and returned via his own kingdom to Bordeaux, which he entered in disguise to evade a suspected French ambush. No combat between the two took part, and Peter returned to Barcelona to stabilize his kingdom, while Charles return to Naples to rally support in his southern Italian lands.[1][9]

While Peter and Charles had been pursuing justice by duel in France, the Catalan admiral Roger of Lauria continued the war in Italy on behalf of Peter. Lauria ravaged the Calabrian coast and kept up a strong naval presence, defeating several of Charles' fleets. In the summer of 1283, Roger took Malta and defeated the Angevin-Provençal fleet at the Battle of Malta. Roger then drew Charles, Prince of Salerno, son and heir apparent of Charles I, out of Naples' port in the summer of 1284. In the ensuing battle, Roger utterly routed Charles' navy in the Battle of the Gulf of Naples. Roger took the prince and 42 ships captive to Messina.[10] Though he maintained control over Naples and much of Southern Italy, Charles lacked the funds and ships to launch a major counter offensive against Aragon, and with his son's capture, he had lost his heir. Charles died in early 1285, while Aragonese attention was diverted towards the war with France. With Charles dead and Peter distracted, Sicily became a secondary theatre in the conflict.[1][9]

In light of Aragonese successes against Charles in Sicily, France looked to take advantage of the conflict. The court of Philip III was split on war with Aragon, for while the pope had granted the Aragonese crown to a French prince, war would be costly. Philip had vowed that an attack on Charles in Sicily would be treated as an attack on France,[4] but the French nobility showed a reluctance to become involved and Philip was unable to respond to the Aragonese invasion in 1283.[11] By early 1284, however, Philip had chosen to declare war; while he had little interest in Sicily itself, he saw value in seizing Roussillon and Montpellier, and in helping save his uncle Charles from defeat.[1] Philip also hoped to expand his influence in northern Spain by securing the Val d'Aran and the Kingdom of Navarre, which was under his protection as per the Treaty of Orléans and nominally ruled by his son, Prince Philip the Fair.[1] To spur an invasion, Pope Martin IV declared a crusade against Aragon, citing King Peter's excommunication and granting an indulgence to any man who died fighting against Peter.[11] Both France and Aragon prepared for war.[1][12]

Through the winter of 1283–1284, both sides continued their war preparations. Though he had been successful in Sicily, Peter of Aragon's war in the east had divided his kingdom's resources, and he faced an increasingly hostile political situation in Aragon as many nobles opposed his wars of expansion. After negotiations with a noble faction, Peter was forced to cede some of his rights as king and release noble prisoners in exchange for the manpower needed to defend Barcelona, his family's seat of power.[1] In France, King Philip deployed the royal army to Toulouse and Navarra, while raising large sums of money from French merchants to pay for the war.[1]

In late 1283 King James II of Majorca, Peter's younger brother, announced his intent to support the French crusade and recognized their suzerainty over Montpellier, while also giving the French army free passage through the Balearic Islands and Roussillon. James and Peter had a longstanding rivalry (Peter had opposed James' inheritance of Majorca after the death of their father), with both brothers desiring each-others kingdoms. While Majorcan support for France eased the French invasion of Aragon, James' actions inadvertently upset Philip's ambitions; the French king had hoped to annex Roussillon from Majorca, but now found himself awkwardly allied to James and therefore politically unable to seize the territory.[1] Regardless of the Majorcan intervention, Philip resolved to move ahead with his invasion; on February 22, 1284, Philip's son Charles of Valois was crowned King of Aragon, a direct challenge to Peter.[1]

With the conflict now widening to include France, papal sanction was given to a war—crusade—which historian H. J. Chaytor describes as "perhaps the most unjust, unnecessary and calamitous enterprise ever undertaken by the Capetian monarchy."[10]

Advance of the French crusader army into Aragon

In the summer of 1285, the French crusader army under King Philip and Charles of Valois entered Roussillon. They included 16,000 cavalry, 17,000 crossbowmen, and 100,000 infantry, along with 100 ships in southern French ports.[13] Though the French had James of Majorca's support, the local populace rose against them and did not allow a quick French passage. When the French army reached the city of Elne, the city refused to open its gates. Elne was valiantly defended by the so-called bâtard de Roussillon ("bastard of Roussillon"), the illegitimate son of Nuño Sánchez, late count of Roussillon. Eventually the city was overcome and brutally sacked, with the French then continuing their advance south. Local nobles conducted a scorched earth campaign against the French, prompting Philip to order his army to isolate the Aragonese garrisons and continue south. Peter and the Aragonese army fell back from the frontier, not willing to risk attacking the larger French army - Peter was also awaiting the return of the men and ships he had fighting in Sicily.[1][11]

By late June 1285, Philip and the French army had reached Girona, laying siege to the city in the heat of the Catalan summer. Philip's army needed constant resupply, forcing the French to move supplies through contested countryside to their rear, or to ship supplies by sea to the town of Rosas, 20 miles from Girona. The Aragonese probed the French lines around Girona, and tried to cut the road to Rosas, but failed; Peter was still unwilling to risk an open battle with the French. While the respective royal armies maneuvered on land, clusters of armed merchant ships and Catalan pirates preyed on French shipping, conducting a successful guerilla war at sea. In early September, the main Aragonese fleet under Roger of Lauria arrived from Sicily. Hardened by years of war, the fleet attacked and decisively defeated a French fleet at the Battle of Les Formigues, giving Aragon control of the Catalan coast and cutting the French army's ability to resupply by sea. Girona fell to the French on 7 September. The French held a ceremony to officially crown Charles of Valois 'King of Aragon' there, but without an actual crown, and the French army was by this time suffering from an outbreak of dysentery. By mid-September, the Philip had decided to end the campaign and began to withdraw back towards the French border.[1][11]

As the French army withdrew, it suffered badly from attrition and guerilla attacks, while Philip himself was afflicted with dysentery.[4] The heir to the French throne, Prince Philip the Fair of Navarre, opened negotiations with Peter for free passage for the royal family through the Pyrenees, and Peter agreed, not wanting to risk a protracted war with France. The French army was not granted this stay and was attacked and routed at the Battle of the Col de Panissars. Philip himself succumbed to dysentery, dying at Perpignan in October. James of Majorca, unable to resist the Aragonese advance without French support, fled his lands and Mallorca was occupied by an Aragonese army late in the summer.[1][11]

14th century fresco depicting the French siege of Girona in 1285

In Aragon, Peter died on 2 November 1285—thus, all three monarchs at the start of the conflict were dead by the end of 1285. Pope Martin IV was also dead, having been forced to flee Rome during a civil uprising, and then taken ill and died in March 1285. The new monarchs who had inherited the war had different priorities, but the end of the year marked a reduction in the intensity of the conflict.[1] Prince Philip the Fair, now Philip IV of France, did not support the war with Aragon, and was more interest in dealing with domestic issues. Prince Charles of Naples, heir to Charles of Anjou, was a prisoner of the Aragonese, with his government managed by the late Charles' councilors. Peter of Aragon's kingdoms were split following his death, with the crown of Aragon passing to Alfonso III of Aragon and the crown of Sicily passing to James II of Sicily. The two monarchs hoped to consolidate the House of Barcelona's gains, and with annexing their uncle James' lands in Mallorca.[1] Alfonso was also engaged in a border war with Castile, threatening the western flank of a still-unstable Aragon.[1] Intermittent warfare continued for several years, mostly at sea and notably at the Battle of the Counts in June 1287, but diplomatic complexities hindered peace. Fears of Castilian, Genoese, Venetian, or Holy Roman intervention drove the peace process forward; a tentative agreement was reached in 1288, and Charles of Naples was ransomed from Aragonese captivity, but Pope Nicholas IV annulled the peace treaty and demanded Philip invade Sicily.[1] In Aragon, king Alfonso was beleaguered by internal troubles, and there were fears that the powerful Aragonese nobility (previously opposed to war with France) would demand that he seize control of Navarre, still ruled by Philip, and thus war with France would break out again.[1] Sicily remained the key point of contention between the French/Papal parties and the House of Barcelona, but neither side was willing to abandon their claim.[1]

A change came in 1290, when Philip bribed one of Charles of Anjou's heirs to give up his claim on Sicily, thereby freeing France's papal obligation to invade. Charles of Valois was also pressured to give up his claim to Sicily, though he would continue to seek the crown as a semi-independent prince. The Treaty of Tarascon, in which Alfonso and James agreed to not hold Sicily against papal wishes, was signed in 1291, but Alfonso died less than a month after signing, rendering the treaty void.[1]

Alfonso's death passed the crown of Aragon to James, who now ruled both Aragon and Sicily. Though he had been king of Sicily first, James was more interested in preserving the authority of the monarchy in Aragon, and so was willing to give up Sicily for a lasting peace with the papacy and France. However, the powerful Catalan merchant class, which had secured large trade concessions in Sicily, demanded the Aragon maintain some control over the island. Complicating matters further, the Sicilians themselves (led by Queen Constance and the Sicilian parliament) were adamant that Sicily would not bow to papal or French rule.[1] With the issue still unresolved, James returned to Aragon to secure a peace with Castile, ordering an end to offensive action in 1293.[1]

In 1295, the election of Pope Boniface VIII opened a path to peace, as Boniface was keen to resolve the Sicilian issue. After negotiations resumed, James agreed to the 1295 Treaty of Anagni, by which he sold the crown of Sicily to the papacy and agreed to marry a member of Charles II's family, Blanche of Anjou, thus securing peace between Aragon and Charles II. Aragon also took on Mallorca as a vassal, ending its military occupation but gaining effective control of the Kingdom of Majorca. The pope took the treaty to mean the end of the Sicilian rebellion and granted the crown of Sicily to Charles, who began to plan a new invasion of the island.[1][14]

However, the Sicilians considered the treaty to be invalid, and so in March 1296 the parliament crowned James' younger brother Frederick as Frederick III, King of Sicily. Frederick, though also a prince of Aragon, resolved to defend the island. Pope Boniface demanded that James support Charles' war against Sicily, but James' position was that he was under no obligation to do so; instead, he negotiated a new treaty in which he agreed to make war on his brother and Sicily in exchange for further compensation, namely money and a papal sanction to annex Sardinia and Corsica.[1]

In 1296, Frederick went on the offensive quickly and invaded Calabria. He seized several towns, encouraged revolt in Naples, negotiated with the Ghibellines of Tuscany and Lombardy, and assisted the house of Colonna against the pope. The Sicilian army had years of experience, and so was still a capable fighting force without Aragonese assistance.[1] By 1297, however, James had re-organized the Aragonese navy and began to wage an effective war against Frederick's forces, who withdrew to Sicily. On 4 July 1299, James himself led his fleet with Roger of Lauria and defeated his brother at the Battle of Cape Orlando. Meanwhile, Charles' sons, Robert and Philip, had landed in Sicily and captured Catania. Philip moved to besiege Trapani, but was defeated and captured by Frederick at the Battle of Falconaria. On 14 June 1300, Roger of Lauria and the Aragonese fleet defeated the Sicilians at the Battle of Ponza.[1]

In 1302, Prince Charles of Valois marched into southern Italy at the behest of Pope Boniface. He landed in Sicily, but his army was ravaged by plague and he was forced to sue for peace. With Charles of Valois defeated, Charles II unable to mount a successful invasion, and James being unconcerned with invading, all sides began to seek peace.[1]

On 19 August, the Peace of Caltabellotta was signed. The treaty confirmed Frederick as King of Sicily and Charles as King of the Mezzogiorno, known thereafter as the Kingdom of Naples.[1] In May 1303, the pope ratified the treaty and Frederick paid him tribute to smooth the peace process. Marriage was also arranged between Frederick and Charles' daughter Eleanor. A clause in the treaty mandated that Frederick's throne would pass to the House of Anjou upon his death, and Frederick agreed to provide military assistance to Charles if he moved to invade Byzantium.[1]

Now recognized as king over Sicily, Frederick adopted the title of King of Trinacria, but to keep the Ghibelline legacy of the Staufer alive he subsequently preferred to call himself "King" without any territorial reference in his chancellery acts from 1304 to 1311, then used "King of Sicily" from 1315 to 1318, and struck coins throughout his reign as rex Sicilie.[15]

The War of the Sicilian Vespers, and the several treaties drawn up to end it, would continue to effect regional politics for decades. Aragon had gained and then given up the crown of Sicily, but its gaining of mercantile interests in Sicily and control over Mallorca and Sardinia (annexed by Aragon in 1323)[16] made it a major power in the Mediterranean.[1] The crownlands of Sicily itself had been split between Sicily and Naples, with different dynasties ruling each half. Frederick III's crown was not restored to the House of Anjou on his death, and so the House of Barcelona maintained rule of the island until the 15th century.[1] The kingdoms of Sicily and Naples would remain separate until the formation of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1816.

The Catalan Company, a mercenary company formed by veterans of the war, would play a major role in the history of the Eastern Mediterranean.[17]

The war, fought between Christian powers over claims to European thrones, is seen by some sources as a sign of the end of Crusading era, and an indicative sign of the degradation of papal powers over excommunication and indulgence.[18][19]

The Rebellamentu di Sichilia, a Sicilian tract of 1290, is available online in three editions:

• Lu rebellamentu di Sichilia. Codice della Biblioteca regionale di Palermo. Edited by Filippo Evola (1882).
• Le vespro siciliano. Cronaca siciliana anonima intitolata Lu rebellamentu di Sichilia, codice esistente nell' Archivio municipale di Catania. Edited by Pasquale Castorina (1882).
• Sicily's Rebellion against King Charles. Translation of the text of the "Rebellamentu" by Louis Mendola (New York 2015) ISBN 9781943639038.

The Vinuta di lu re Iapicu in Catania, another Sicilian history, by Atanasiu di Iaci, is available online:

• Romanzo siculo del 1287. Edited by Bernardino Biondelli (1856).

The contemporary Catalan chroniclers:

• Bernat Desclot, Crònica, ed. Ferran Soldevila, Jordi Bruguera and Maria Teresa Ferrer i Mallol, Barcelona 2008
• Ramon Muntaner, Crònica, ed. Ferran Soldevila, Jordi Bruguera and Maria Teresa Ferrer i Mallol, Barcelona 2011 (English tr. Anna Kinsky Goodenough, Chronicle of Muntaner, London 1920)

Note also:

• Bruni, Leonardo. History of the Florentine People. 1416. ISBN 0-674-00506-6 (Harvard, 2001)

• Amari, Michele (1886), La guerra del Vespro siciliano, vol. 1–3 (9 ed.), Milan: Hoepli (vol. 1, vol. 2, vol. 3) (English tr. of 2nd (?) edn. Francis Egerton, History of the War of Sicilian Vespers, 3 vols., London 1850: vol. 1, vol. 2, vol. 3)
• Caro, Georg (1895–1899), Genua und die Mächte am Mittelmeer 1257–1311. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des XIII. Jahrhunderts, vol. 1–2, Halle(vol. 1, vol. 2)
• Rohde, Hans Eduard (1913), Der Kampf um Sizilien in den Jahren 1291–1302, Berlin: Walther Rothschild
• Chaytor, Henry J. (1933), A History of Aragon and Catalonia, London: Methuen
• Salavert y Roca, Vicente (1956), Cerdeña y la expansión mediterránea de la Corona de Aragón (1297–1314), Madrid: CSIC
• Runciman, Steven (1958), The Sicilian Vespers: A History of the Mediterranean World in the Later Thirteenth Century, Cambridge, ISBN 0-521-43774-1
• Hillgarth, Jocelyn N. (1976), The Spanish Kingdoms, 1250–1516, vol. 1, Oxford: Clarendon Press, ISBN 019822530X
• Peri, Illuminato (1982), La Sicilia dopo il Vespro. Uomini, città e campagne, 1282–1376, Rome: Laterza
• Housley, Norman (1982), The Italian Crusades: The Papal-Angevin Alliance and the Crusades against Christian Lay Powers, 1254–1343, Oxford
• Pryor, John H. (1983), "The Naval Battles of Roger de Lauria", Journal of Medieval History, 9 (3): 179–216, doi:10.1016/0304-4181(83)90031-3
• Bresc, Henri (1986), Un monde méditerranéen. Économie et société en Sicile, 1300-1450, Bibliothèque des écoles françaises d'Athènes et de Rome, vol. 262, Rome: École française de Rome, doi:10.3406/befar.1986.1245, ISBN 2728301034
• Backman, Clifford R. (1995), The Decline and Fall of Medieval Sicily: Politics, Religion, and Economy in the Reign of Frederick III, 1296–1337, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521496640
• Abulafia, David (1997), The Western Mediterranean Kingdoms, 1200–1500: The Struggle for Dominion, London: Longman, ISBN 0-582-07820-2
• Mott, Lawrence V. (2003), Sea Power in the Medieval Mediterranean: The Catalan-Aragonese Fleet in the War of Sicilian Vespers, Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press
• Stanton, Charles D. (2019), Roger of Lauria (c.1250–1305): 'Admiral of Admirals', Woodbridge: Boydell, ISBN 978-1-78327-453-6
• Tyerman, Christopher (2019), The World of the Crusades: An Illustrated History, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, ISBN 978-0-300-21739-1
• Colomer Pérez, Guifré (2022), Memòries de la guerra de les Vespres (1282–1285). Controvèrsies ideològiques i conflictes polítics a la Mediterrània occidental (PDF), PhD thesis: Universitat Rovira i Virgili